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Support SB 85 -

Senate Bill 85 which would allow Louisiana Department of Education and Department of Health to anonymously survey students about their sexual risk behaviors is being considered by the Senate this week.

As a voter in your district, I want to tell you about the very important issue of anonymous, voluntary public health surveys of students about risk behaviors, including behaviors related to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, like HIV. Our state is high on the list of negative outcomes in health and education outcomes—particularly sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies—partially because we do not know in which risk behaviors young people are engaging and cannot effectively develop programs and interventions to prevent them.

We know that surveying will not only get us better information on which to base prevention programs, but will make the state eligible for more funding than is currently available for school-based and adolescent health programming. There are many existing laws that protect the privacy and rights of students, parents, and schools from being forced to participate in these public health surveys—and they require that at every level the participating district, school, parent, and student agree to participate. The data is fully anonymous and it is only reported at the state level. District and school level data is not reported.